Breakfast

This photo was taken a fortnight ago outside La Cuadrona bar in the village of La Hermida, Cantabria. It represents a moment of breakfast bliss.

Firstly, note the two large cafés con leche. The coffee served in Spanish bars is almost always excellent (these certainly were) and is uniformly cheap (1.10 euro up to1.40 for a large). And yes, that really is a large – no Starbucks bucket-sized mugs in sight. (Let your over-worked bladder heave a sigh of relief.)

The fact that coffee has leapt to number one on the list of my breakfast priorities is just one symptom of my advancing age and parenthood.  I actually didn’t drink coffee at all for many years. Now if I leave the house in the morning without consuming a cup, bad things happen. Like ‘grazing’ a crash barrier with the car. Ahem.

So, yes, coffee is the number one component in the perfect breakfast. Next, the substance of the meal needs to be addressed.

My favourite Spanish breakfast has to be ‘tostada con tomate’. All you cunning linguists out there will correctly surmise that this is simply toast with tomato. As with all simple food quality is the key. Here in Bar La Cuadrona the tomatoes were fresh from the bar owners’ huerta (veg plot). Big, fat, juicy and flavourful. We cut them in half and rubbed them along  the slab of toast, squeezing the goodness into the porous surface. Topped off with a drizzle of good quality olive oil and a light sprinkle of salt it was delicious.

Depending on your tastes and your plans for the day you can incorporate a raw clove of garlic into the process. A quick rub of this along the toast, before the tomato, really makes the flavours sing.

When we ordered our ‘tostada con tomate’ the barman asked us if we also wanted jamón. We hesitated just long enough for the couple who were breakfasting at the next table to tell us enthusiastically ‘yes, you want the jamón. Está muy bueno.’ When a Spanish person tells you the jamón is good you listen to them – they take their jamón extremely seriously.

We duly ordered the jamón and, of course, it was excellent.

In another instance of ‘I’ll have what they’re having’ the previous evening, we had sampled the delights of the the cook’s light, fluffy pancakes and now we couldn’t resist adding them to our breakfast order. Totally unnecessary but delightfully indulgent. We were on holiday, after all.

The crucial finishing touches to this perfect breakfast are also evident in the photograph. The dappled sunlight dances on the glass top of the table, underneath which are detailed maps of the surrounding limestone gorge and nature reserve. Ah yes, with our bellies full we would be ready to set out on our day’s adventures. Bliss.

 

This post is for The Gallery, where this week’s theme is Breakfast. Click the link below to find out more and visit more posts.

La Matanza – A Living Tradition

Last weekend saw the celebration of ‘la matanza’ in our village. Celebration may sound like an odd term for the butchering of a pig, even to meat-eaters’ ears, but if so that says rather a lot about our privileged, pre-packaged lives and the distance we generally keep between us and the reality of the provenance of our food.

Me, I’d like to think of the matanza as a sort of porcine wake – a festive yet serious gathering of all family and community members to celebrate all that is good about the pig.

City-dwelling sons and daughters return to the family homestead to join the village in an assembly around the body, each with a task to perform. The elders of the village are invited to oversee proceedings, to ensure that all is done as it always was. (For me, seeing my 90 year old neighbour relishing this role was cause enough for celebration.)

Every last edible bit of the pig is honoured and put to use, from the ears to the trotters via everything in between. Gossip is caught up on, much cafe con leche is drunk, biscuits eaten and, of course, porky bits nibbled.

The village dogs and cats are chased from the open barn door but lurk hopefully and are sometimes rewarded with a tossed tit-bit. The children sit on the floor playing with their (occasionally blood spattered) toys and they are rewarded with a round of sausages of their own to bring home for their dinner.

In the evening a hearty meal will be eaten and home-made cider drunk. It’s a community affair that lasts a whole weekend and unites families and entire villages.

Historically every household in rural Asturias kept a pig that they would butcher annually. Now, with the exodus that has taken place to the city (but that interestingly in these times of economic crisis seems to be going into reverse) many families do not keep a pig but yet they will buy one whole from a trusted butcher and so the tradition lives on and families continue to manufacture their year’s supply of embutidos (the collective noun for all the Spanish sausages and cured hams.)

The pictures below are of Sunday morning’s chorizo making marathon. The chorizo will be hung, along with the morcilla (Asturian black pudding with squash and paprika) in a smokeroom for 10 days.

An Octopus-y Odyssey

The 25th January was Richie’s birthday and after a nutritious breakfast of flumps (Jack’s marshmallowy and only ever so-slightly self-interested birthday present to his father) the day progressed into a galloping gourmand gourmet odyssey.

I know what you’re thinking – this woman feeds her family Flumps for breakfast….how well placed to pontificate on all matters culinary

It was a gloriously sunny day as we headed to Gijon, which with its beaches, restaurants and the best play park ever, satisfied all members of our (birthday) party.

San Lorenzo Beach, Gijon. Blue skies and sunbathing in January – North Wales it ain’t

From the beach, our attention was drawn to ‘La Bella Vista’ resturant (the blue one on the end in the photo above.) With a gorgeous terrace  shimmering in the January sunlight and very ‘bella’ views across the bay to the old quarter of town, it seemed like the perfect spot to celebrate.

A quick check of the menu on display by the gate confirmed that this was an upmarket joint with a menu selection that gave an inventive twist to traditional Asturian fare. Prices were correspondingly on the slightly sophisticated side but just enough so that we could feel like we were celebrating in style without risking bankruptcy.

The ‘Menu del Dia’ lunchtime formula option was priced at 14 Euros for three courses with wine/cider (weekday ‘menu’ price in Gijon ranges between 7 to 15 euros) but we threw caution to the wind and went a la carte.

The birthday boy had a yen for octopus (nothing new there – pulpo, as it’s called in Spanish, is a firm family favourite). As the only such dish was ‘pulpo a la brasa’ in the ‘to share’ section we naturally plumped for that for starters.

When the waitress deposited the gorgeously presented dish to us, Richie’s face fell like that of an 8 year old whose aunty has just bought him the wrong football strip for his birthday. ‘I think we’ve made a horrible error,’ he whimpered. (We actually have a history of making dodgy dining decisions on his birthday. E.g. seven years ago we spent Jan 25th in a deserted Polish restaurant in Sheffield. Pity for the proprietors should never be a factor in your choice of restaurants. If they’re always empty there’s probably a good reason.)

Jack tucks into the tiny but perfectly presented octopus dish

To be fair, the octopus tasted great. There just wasn’t enough of it. The portion wouldn’t even have been large enough for Jack on his own – and sure enough he polished off a good half of it. (Ways in which Jack is a Spanish toddler Number 3 – he happily devours all kinds of tentacled foodstuffs.)

At 16 euros for the portion it a) seemed rather pricey and b) just wasn’t going to satisfy our penchant for pulpo.

Our mains, albondigas de perdiz (partridge meatballs) and carpaccio de gacela (gazelle carpaccio with a cherry salsa) were a big improvement, being imaginative and well-executed but also more generous in size. (We’re really not that greedy, honest, but it’s a fairly basic requriement of the whole dining experience to leave the table sated.)

Carpaccio de gacela and albondigas de perdiz

We skipped dessert – mainly due to a crabby toddler who needed his post-prandial siesta (soooo Spanish, I’m telling you). Discretion being the better part of valour we beat a hasty retreat to the promenade where Jack soon nodded off in his pushchair.

A meander along the seafront brought us face to face with the dilapidated looking Galician Bar-Restaurant which we had previously pondered over as a dining destination, being, as it is, a dedicated pulpo restaurant. We caught each other’s eye. We couldn’t, could we? Well, it was his birthday….

Never mind the rundown exterior – it’s a pulpo palace!

The last lunchtime patrons were leaving the bar as we entered. The floor beneath the counter bore testament to the passage of a busy lunch service – hundreds of cider spattered napkins and toothpicks littered the floor. An excellent omen.  The frontage may be past its best but if the diners keep coming the food must be good.

We ordered a restrained half portion of pulpo gallega (priced at 9 euros, with a full portion at 16) and when it came, unlike its tentacled colleague from earlier in the day, it did not disappoint. It was a mound of succulent, olive oiled, rock-salted, juicy octopus. Perfect!

Finally satisfied we headed for home. If there’s one thing about getting older, you sure do know exactly what you want and, if you’re lucky, how to get it.

Back to Baked Beans…

A postscript to my Spanish croquetas recipe. It seems that whenever I feel at my most supremely Spanish I awake the next day (or even sometimes the next moment) to find I’ve gone all cliched ex-pat. So, the day after croquetas I find myself cooking sausage, eggs, baked beans and chips. Some kind of deep-seated unconscious reaction to my espanolization? Well, the sausages were criollo, at least (the beans were Heinz, claro.)

Spanish Home Cooking – Croquetas

Today I feel like a real Spanish mamá. I just cooked some croquetas from chicken left-overs. It doesn’t get much more Spanish than that. Well, except maybe if I cooked it whilst wearing a supremely practical blue housecoat. And in a spotlessly clean house….Well, anyway…..today I cooked croquetas. And they were great.

Me and my homemade croquetas – plain but fabulous!

Croquetas are a classic Spanish dish and a fab finger-food that is beloved of children and bar-propping tapas eaters alike. They are also a fantastically frugal food, helping you use up every last scrap of any left-over cooked chicken (or ham) that you happen to have.

I have to confess that I always thought that croquetas were made with potatoes (maybe because I’m Irish?) so it was a revelation the first time I actually saw them being made, by my neighbour Rosi, and realised that the basis for the filling is in fact a thick white sauce or bechamel.

Watching Rosi make her croquetas also made me realise just what a simple, good home-cooked food they are (or can be at their best) and it inspired me with the confidence to incorporate them into my own kitchen repertoire. It’s the kind of plain, real cooking that is best learned at the elbow of a kitchen matriarch.

Real Spanish food as cooked in real Spanish kitchens

Just in case you’re not so lucky as I and that’s not an option for you, below is the basic recipe for you to have a play with. ¡Que aproveche!

Recipe for Chicken Croquetas / Croquetas de Pollo

You’ll need:  Nothing you don’t already have! (That’s the whole idea )

whatever cooked chicken you have left over and need to use up! I grind mine in my new whizzy food processor but Rosi just chops hers up into tiny pieces with some kitchen scissors

for the white sauce:  olive oil (note: not butter, this is a Spanish recipe!), milk, plain flour, onion, salt, black pepper, nutmeg (optional)

for the coating:  egg, breadcrumbs

Olive oil to fry

The quantities all depend on the amount of meat you have and how far you want (or need) to make it go.

On this occasion I made 12 croquetas and used approximately: 2 tbsp of olive oil, 4 tbsp plain flour and 8 fl oz of milk plus some finely chopped onion (a small handful).  I had 250g of chicken to hand.

Heat the olive oil then add the onion and fry gently for a few minutes until it becomes soft and translucent.
Sprinkle the flour in and stir for a minute or two more then add the milk slowly, stirring constantly and bring the paste to a boil.
The aim here is to make a gloriously thick white sauce that ultimately winds up with the consistency of a dough mix.

Once the sauce is thickened, turn the heat off and add the chicken and season to taste with the salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Spread the mix on a large plate and place in the fridge until fully chilled. This is important as it makes the mixture much more easy to work with and shape. Allow at least a couple of hours or even overnight.

Once it’s thoroughly chilled you’re ready to shape the croquetas – line up your plate of paste, a plate with beaten egg, a plate with breadcrumbs and a plate for the moulded croquetas.

Rosi uses a dessert spoon to get the perfect Spanish croqueta shape. You can do this or shape them with your hands by rolling. Next dip them in the egg and finally in the breadcrumbs, making sure they are nicely coated.

Now all that remains is to fry them in very hot olive oil. I use a deep-fat fryer set to 190 degrees c. You could also just do them in a deep frying pan.

Once they are a gorgeous golden brown (a matter of just a couple of minutes) take them out and soak off the excess oil onto kitchen paper.

Serve immediately.  Riquísimo!!

Fuente La Lloba

Outside the Restaurant

We first heard tell of Fuente La Lloba over a year ago, but we dismissed the tales as a ‘rural myth’. A first class Japanese restaurant hidden in the hills of Asturias, where the hearty fabada reigns supreme? Unlikely…

So it was with some trepidation that I asked the barman in the tiny local bar of the tiny local village of Anayo if he knew of a Japanese eating house in the area. But surprisingly enough he didn’t just laugh in my face and I was issued with directions to a place some 3 kilometres further into the hills.

The road wound ever-narrowingly past scattered houses and horreos, until at the end it reached the traditional Asturian house that hosts the restaurant of Fuente La Lloba. Here the view opens out suddenly and dramatically, with the slopes of the Sueve mountain rearing up before you.

The glass-fronted restaurant takes full advantage of its impressive setting and the fusion of stylish, contemporary Japanese decor and traditional Asturian architecture works surprisingly well. The food itself is excellent. We had a four course tasting menu, plus dessert, which cost 28 Euros a head, excluding drinks.

Our Hosts - Eduardo & Kei

A truly unforgettable dining experience!